Press Release: Universal City, Calif., Nov. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The chilling prequel to the horror hit invites audiences again into the lore of the spirit board when Ouija: Origin of Evil arrives on Digital HD January 10, 2017 and on Blu-ray™, DVD and On Demand January 17, 2017 from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. Set 50 years prior to the events that took place in Ouija, director and writer Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Before I Wake) tells a terrifying new tale as a grieving spiritualist mother and her young daughters discover the buried dangers of an ancient game. With exclusive bonus content including deleted scenes, a character spotlight, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, and more, Ouija: Origin of Evil delivers spine-tingling chills to viewers.
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Set in the 1960s, Mike Flanagan's Ouija: Origin of Evil features a vintage setting for its scares. Playing a key role in bringing the film's bygone era to life is costume designer Lynn Falconer. With Flanagan's latest movie now in theaters, we caught up with Falconer for our latest Q&A feature, and she also provided us with two characters sketches that she did for the film.

Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us, Lynn. Were there any speciﬁc challenges or rewarding moments that you experienced while working on a horror ﬁlm set in the 1960s?

Lynn Falconer: Speciﬁcally rewarding is ﬁnding a funky piece of wardrobe from the past and breathing new life into it by reimagining that piece on a character. I shopped thrift stores, boutiques, and estate sales to ﬁnd the ’60s period, but while I had a ﬁrm rudder for accuracy,
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Chicago – Like many of the creatures or villains it inspires, the horror genre has been slowly decaying for years now. In a time of reboots and tired sequels, 2016 has shown us glimpses of future promise by revisiting elements of the past. Flanagan continues this hot streak, one he helped create with “Hush” earlier this year, with the prequel “Ouija: Origin of Evil”.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Mike Flanagan is slowly becoming a welcome force in the horror genre. He grabbed our attention with the visual mindfuck that is “Oculus”. His visual style is an art form all its own. Done in an almost Del Toro style, Flanagan loves playing with form and tone in an unconventional way. He finds the beauty in the darkness, the humor in the horror, and the humanity in the inhumane. Aside from successfully recreating the aesthetic of the 60’s in “Ouija: Origin of Evil”, he also channels that
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Actress Elizabeth Reaser might not be the most well known name in the world of movies, mainly because she’s been doing smaller indies before being cast as Esme Cullen in The Twilight Saga, but it’s hard to miss if you’re an avid television viewer. In the past ten years, she’s had recurring roles on Grey’s Anatomy and The Good Wife, plus appeared on True Detective and Mad Men.

She holds a very prominent role in Mike Flanagan’s Ouija: Origin of Evil, the prequel to the 2014 horror hit, playing Alice Zander, the widowed mother of two girls, who holds séances in their home to make money. When she discovers the hot new trend, the Ouija board—this is 1965 Los Angeles, after all—she hopes to bring it into the act, but instead calls forth malevolent spirits that possess her younger daughter Doris (Lulu Wilson). Things get worse from there.
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This prequel to the supernatural vehicle for a board game is impressively tense – for the first hour at least

The 2014 Ouija movie was a confusing way to drum up notoriety for the Hasbro supernatural board game (buy it, you’ll love it; don’t buy it, it’ll kill you). This prequel makes the rules clearer: Ouija is safe to play, just not in a graveyard – or in a nice suburban home that happens to have a charnel house backstory. Engaging up-and-comer Annalise Basso plays the sceptical daughter of a phoney medium (Elizabeth Reaser), whose home life turns seismically shaky when her kid sister (eerily candid Lulu Wilson) starts coming over all Linda Blair. Once director Mike Flanagan pulls the big bumps-and-thumps lever, the cause is pretty much lost, but the first hour keeps the suspense admirably taut, the 1967 period setting and sense of domestic claustrophobia bringing a twist of
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2014’s Ouija was awful. I’m not going to mince my words here. It was a lazy, cliched cheapo horror bereft of any scares, that angered me even further, because of the fact that horror movies make money no matter what, that it would be the beginning of a new franchise. And make money it did, $103 million of a $5 million budget in fact. So here we are with Ouija: Origin of Evil, which as the title suggests sheds light on the back story of the Zander house and the malicious spirits that haunt it. I was girding myself for another slog through the worst the horror genre has to offer. Or so I thought, because director Mike Flanagan (Occulus) threw me one hell of a curveball, delivering an endlessly entertaining, schlocky ride that, while far from perfect, feels like something of a do-over for the series.
It’s the swinging Sixties,
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“‘Ouija’ is genuinely frightening and smart, the rare horror prequel able to stand on its own merits and deliver a full-bodied story that succeeds without any previous knowledge or trappings. However, in outfitting this particular haunted house with monsters to spare, Flanagan loses the thread of what’s really scary: Everything we can’t see.”

An Ouija board is meant to be a tool or toy, depending on how you view it, to communicate with the spirit world. It’s a device that conjures messages from the “magically moving” wooden or plastic planchette while participants nervously sit in a circle waiting to see if someone will reach out to them from the other side. Often in situations like this (trust me, I have tried this as a kid) you hunch over the board with scared friends and jump at the slightest noise that breaks the silence. So, even though the triangular guide didn’t move an inch, it was the silence that scared us. It’s the possibility that something could call out from the quiet stillness. It’s essentially the fear of communication, and unfortunately for Ouija: Origin Of Evil, it’s the over abundance of talking that kills the mood in this 60’s seance.
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In the prequel, Reaser plays the mother to both Basso and Wilson's characters, and the trio of actresses must contend with evil forces after bringing home a Ouija board in hopes of enhancing their séance business. Thomas co-stars in the film as Father Tom, a priest who steps in to offer his assistance to the family in an effort to stop the supernatural tormentor once and for all.

During the interviews, the Origin of Evil cast discussed what appealed to them about their respective roles in the character-driven sequel, their experiences collaborating with Flanagan and each other throughout production, and how much they appreciated the fact that the film wanted to give
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The first Ouija film scored at the box office, but few loved it. Ouija 2? A big improvement...

It's possible that many of you clicking on this review just want to know if this is a better movie than 2014's Ouija. The short answer is yes and substantially so. It's being marketed as a new standalone story (and, indeed, you don't need to see Ouija at all to understand Origin Of Evil) but viewers with long/detailed memories will pick up quickly that this is fact an origin story - set 47 years earlier - for evil ghost Doris from the first film. Luckily, between the period setting and the change in creative team, they've done a good job of distancing it and, while the board may look the same, we're playing a very different game.

Ouija Origin of Evil review: A prequel to 2014’s Ouija arrives in cinemas this Friday. But can it shake of the stink of the first film?

Ouija Origin of Evil review by Kat Hughes.

In 2014 Ouija arrived in cinemas. It didn’t really knock any critics socks off, but did take over $103 million dollars worldwide. Considering that it was made for only $5 million, it has of course got another film. Ouija: Origin of Evil goes down the prequel, rather than sequel, path.

Anyone who has seen the first one will be familiar with the story of Doris, her sister Paulina, and Mother. For those that haven’t seen the original, Ouija: Origin of Evil will fill in the blanks. The year is 1967, widow Alice (Elizabeth Reaser) and her two daughters Doris (Lulu Wilson) and Paulina (Annalise Basso) are coping with life after dad. Alice runs a seance scam business and,
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Throughout his career, filmmaker Mike Flanagan has proven himself to have an immense amount of skills both behind the camera and as a talented screenwriter who has always remained focused on giving genre fans interesting and well-conceived characters to follow. For his latest film, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Flanagan goes back to his own horror-loving roots for an old-school prequel that is not only a lot of fun to watch, but also easily surpasses its predecessor in almost every possible way.

In fact, this is how much I enjoyed Ouija: Origin of Evil: I had skipped seeing the first Ouija when it was out in theaters in 2014, but because of what Mike Flanagan (and his talented cast and crew) managed to create here, it made the prospect of seeing the original intriguing enough for me to sit down and watch it. Yeah, it wasn’t great, but Origin of Evil was so enjoyable,
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Don’t be afraid, familiarity with Stiles White’s 2014 horror offering “Ouija” isn’t required to enjoy Mike Flanagan’s inventive and often flat-out horrifying prequel, “Ouija: Origin of Evil.” While Flanagan, who previously helmed the chiller “Oculus” and the well-received festival hit “Hush,” builds in some necessary links between the two films, his “Ouija” happily exists as its own standalone feature — albeit one kitted out with a seemingly never-ending slew of nods to the rest of the genre.

Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard wear their influences on their sleeves, offering up a veritable cornucopia of horror tricks and tropes that mostly succeed on their own, and “Ouija” giddily zips between haunted house thriller, exorcism drama and skillful period piece, all wrapped up in a neat and terrifying little bow.

“Ouija” and its characters are forced to wrestle with the nature of belief at every turn — belief in “the spirit world,
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A hauntingly old-fashioned atmosphere infuses Ouija: Origin of Evil, a superior prequel to the 2014 horror film which used the parlor board game as its inspiration. Set nearly 50 years earlier, with its visual style evocatively rendering its period setting, the film delivers a satisfying quotient of scares before lapsing into genre clichés in its final act.
Taking place in 1967, the story concerns the Zander family, including widowed mother Alice (Elizabeth Reaser); teen daughter Paulina, known as Lina (Annalise Basso); and 9-year-old Doris (Lulu Wilson).
Alice runs a fake medium business out of her home, using

As a prequel to the 2014 horror flick Ouija, we find out exactly how the evil was released by the dreaded spirit board in Mike Flanagan’s Ouija: Origin of Evil, which is getting ready to make its bow in theatres. Though the original wasn’t very well received, this second outing for the franchise is a significant step up and a bloody good horror film.

Set in 1967 Los Angeles, a widowed mother (Elizabeth Reaser) and her two daughters run a séance scam business to try and help people find closure with those they’ve lost. When the mother decides to incorporate a Ouija board, a new fad, into the process, she unwittingly unleashes real evil into her home. One particularly malevolent spirit inhabits the youngest daughter and soon the family is fighting to save their lives and send the poltergeist back to the other side.

Thought to be one of a new generation of horror filmmakers taking the genre into a welcome Renaissance, Mike Flanagan spent many years cutting his teeth directing television in the ten years between his second and third films. While his 2011 thriller Absentia did find a cult following, it wasn’t until his next film Oculus premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013 when Hollywood started to take notice.

That led to a couple other films including making Hush with Blumhouse Productions, who around the same time hired Flanagan to write and direct a prequel to their 2014 horror hit, Ouija.

Ouija: Origin of Evil takes its prequel status quite literally by shifting the story back to 1967 when a single widowed mother Alice Zander (Elizabeth Reaser) and her two daughters are helping to pay the rent by holding rigged séances. When Alice brings home a Ouija board and immediately starts to break the “rules” of “playing,
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Mike Flanagan’s film is essentially a branding exercise and its setup formulaic, but the director injects plenty of fun into this story of supernatural possession

Ouija, 2014’s rapidly forgotten exercise in crash-bang-wallop horror, was chiefly notable as a business proposition, born of a deal struck between Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes outfit and boardgame nabobs Hasbro to convert the latter’s products into movies. Still, it was cheap enough to turn a profit on wide release – $103m (£84m) on a $5m budget – and so, this Halloween, we’re offered a prequel that claims to fill in some of the devil board’s backstory. “The spirit world is unpredictable,” its phoney occultist heroine Madame Zander (Elizabeth Reaser) informs us. The movie business, as we know very well, is not.

For all that, Origin of Evil – directed by Mike Flanagan, the emergent talent behind 2011’s unsettling Absentia – does just enough to
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The rare horror sequel made with considerably more wit, craft, and imagination than its predecessor, “Ouija: Origin of Evil” feels less like the continuation of a budding franchise than an apology for what went wrong the first time. Writer-director Mike Flanagan (who proved his horror bona fides with the 2013 sleeper “Oculus”) takes over the creative reins from helmer Stiles White and institutes a welcome dramatic shift from the rote terrorized teens plot of 2014’s “Ouija.” And yet as much as Flanagan does to set his film apart, the follow-up is ultimately bogged down by the backstory baggage it’s forced to deliver.

Serving up enough solid scares to satisfy fans of “Conjuring”/“Insidious”-style haunted house horror, “Origin of Evil” should benefit from a perfectly timed pre-Halloween release and no significant genre competition in the marketplace to post sturdy box office. It could even best the $100 million worldwide gross of “Ouija,
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